Blog: Magandeep Singh

Wine sparks off so many conversations. Little good comes of them, but many find them healthy. Much like a treadmill really: running without going anywhere and definitely unimaginative as a way to lose calories.

The problem is this: wine suffers from being itself. If it is a reserved and sombre drink then people complain that it is too fuddy-duddy. If it tries to be cool and fun, then people complain it is too commercial. What is wine to do? More personally, what are people behind the wine, or around it, to do?

I have been given grief for conducting wine dinners, and also for having an all-night wine trance. Much of the grief came from people who didn’t get invited to either but even those who did turn up kept talking about how it would have been better had it been the other way round. The trance-goers wanted a soirée and the ‘wine-and-cheese’ types expressed a desire for some remixed Kruder and Dorfmeister.

On the whole I was well baffled. Does nobody know how to have a generally good time? Do people have no idea of what they really like? Worse still yet, do I not know my friends and their preferences at all?

The thing is that those who complained can and will never be entirely satisfied. They are also, coincidentally, married. But on further probing, it was revealed that the problem was deeper – it was wine that created the fickleness. People are too scared to play with it: scared that they might be ticked off by some snob. Or else, they want to disfigure everything around wine so much that it masks their self-confessed illusionary inaptitude. Amidst all this nobody wants to truly enjoy and have fun and they all blame the rituals that surround and consecrate wine.

Now we are hitting something solid. It’s not wine itself but the rituals that create the confusion. The classic rule of rituals has been this, “If you are enjoying it, then you are doing it wrong.”

In fact, the very word ritual for most cooks up images of sacred altars and small sacrificial animals. For some others it conjures furry handcuffs, leather suits and mindless masochism. Choose your team; given the right setting, either can be fun.

But these rituals are killing wine. Why do we have to follow a certain code to understand wine better? Sure there are some things to be respected but why must they too be imposed upon us. Let me share a few things that many of my elite wine friends in the world do. These are some top winemakers and wine tasters and on their own time, this is what they do.

This lady has some of the most iconic wines of the New World in her cellar as her husband is the winemaker. But she finds them a tad too strong and often she adds ice when having a glass of the prestige red. Having wine on a lot of ice will not dilute it - just like having scotch on the rocks doesn’t dilute the whisky. It adjusts and maintains temperature and releases some aromas (as a tiny amount of the ice melts into the beverage). Given how wines today are so high on alcohol, I don't feel adding ice will remain taboo for too long.

Another person I know often mixes wines in his glass. He will take half a glass of young Barolo which still has years before it opens up and then will spruce it with half a glass of a fruity Barbera or similar-styled wine. The idea is simple. The ‘final’ wine should be drinkable – it should have aromas, fruitiness and flavour. Sure, the Consorzio Barolo will be up in arms but they are too far from India to cause any serious damage, not until dessert is served anyway, so worry not.

Wine Cocktails. I mention these for a reason. After the blasphemous message in the points above this one will suddenly seem very normal and acceptable. Voila! It just shows that every mind can be moulded – it is only a matter of persistence and patience. Give yourself time and you too will come around. Try anything and everything; it only seems kinky the first time.

For me the word ritual is about just one thing: respect. It is about sanctifying an act through gests rather than through rigour. The only rule that should be applied is to have fun. To truly enjoy and make others around you enjoy. As a friend’s mother says, only boring people get bored. So don’t get bored with wine, or worse yet, don't let wine make a boring person out of you.

Just,
Magan.